Honestly, it sounds like you're just trying to justify your own reasoning to yourself.

Why would I use AI to replace something I genuinely enjoy and invest my time in? That's just nonsense. I use AI to do the things I don't enjoy so I have more time to do the things that I enjoy.

Edited to add: When I get into my world-building, I can literally spend an entire weekend doing that. If using AI for the last five minutes of that weekend to create some visuals for it negates in your mind all the actual work I put in and you call me lazy for that, then you wouldn't be playing at my table anymore. DMing for multiple campaigns simultaneously can be a full-time job in itself (minus the paycheck), but is something I love and happily invest all that time into.

Not everyone *wants* to be an artist.

Ah, very interesting.


So you feel like a blanket ban would penalize (for lack of a better word) innocent people? Am I interpreting you correctly there?


Not to nitpick, but I think you said earlier that you do literally use AI to do *some* creative work for you (namely, the tokens and stuff for your campaigns). I mean, maybe I misinterpreted that part, but it sounded to me like you pretty much just straight-up ask AI to generate those images for you. So... I dunno, if that is the reality and you actually do see nothing wrong with it, then... I dunno.

Anyway, I want to go back to the idea of personal experience, because the thing above about "penalizing" people makes it sound maybe like your personal experience *does* matter. Like, if this "penalizing" thing is supposed to be a purely intellectual point, then I don't get it. Fill in any other regulation from any other part of life and see if that still sounds right: does having a minimum age to buy liquor penalize responsible 15-year-olds? Do documentation requirements in medicine penalize responsible doctors? To me that just sounds wrong. I see no particular reason to believe that a well-constructed rule penalizes responsible people. To me that's just the nature of living in a society: sometimes you make smallish sacrifices for the sake of upholding the collective good.

Now, on the other hand, if you *felt* like you were being unfairly penalized, that would be a different story. But that would be a personal experience, and you're saying that isn't factoring in. So yeah, something interesting is happening here, but I'm not sure what it is.

And then, on a separate note...


I mean, this isn't about what *I* want. I'm not even a mod or anything. I have no power here beyond my words. So if you choose to be gratuitously disrespectful to someone who's trying to do the right thing, then I literally cannot stop you. I just don't know why you yourself would want to act that way.

Innocent people, as opposed to...?


I really hope "I use AI for tokens" wasn't your whole takeaway from my paragraphs on my prep for the games, because I also said that making that art with AI is such a small part of what I do in my prep. It's the last part, after I've finished all the world-building and lore-writing, the maps, the encounters, etc. Once that's all done, THEN I go to a generator to make a couple pictures if I have time left.


An outright ban on AI penalizes the users who have been using it and sharing their results and building a small community around it in the AI WAM group. This isn't about feelings, and I'm not sure why you're trying to make it about feelings.

I doubt you and I are going to come to an understanding, since you're trying to fit what I say into your views on the subject rather than looking at it objectively.

Well, I dunno, that's what I was asking you. Is "innocent" close to the word that you would use? Or is there another word that fits your meaning better?


Honestly, the fact that you use AI for tokens wasn't going to be part of my takeaway at all until you said you didn't use AI to do the work for you. I understand that it's less than 25% of your process (maybe significantly less, but that's the number you gave me), and I do respect the rest of the work that you do. If anything I'm just puzzled about why you would volunteer the fact that you use AI to make images for you and then, a few posts later, say that you don't use AI "to do the creative work for [you]."


Is it really the objective truth of the matter to say that a ban would penalize users? Again, is it the objective truth to say that, like, ethical standards related to recusal penalize judges or that vehicle license and registration laws punish drivers? Or is that an interpretation based on a specific point of view?

As to the question of feelings, basically I see one of two possibilities, not just for you but in general. Either someone who uses AI to generate and share images here really cares about it and it's something that's meaningful and important to them, or not.

If so, then the people who are calling for a ban deserve to hear that they're trying to ban something that's really personally important to someone. Whether or not a ban is a penalty, it would have consequences, and one of the consequences that you're describing is that it would damage a community of users who rely on AI for, y'know, whatever it is that's important to them. One of the things that I would expect from the "ban" side of the discussion is to display at least some minimal amount of empathy to fellow WAMers... but I'm not sure how they can even have the chance to display that empathy if the people on the "allow" side never say that it matters to them in a personal, felt way.

On the other hand, if AI is not really all that important to someone on the "allow" side, then I would expect that person to grapple pretty seriously with the moral and other objections raised in this thread and, as in the other case, to show some real empathy towards the people who have explained the personal factors behind their objections (again, assuming that they've made those personal factors clear).

Basically this is the same reason I've been asking thereald to treat people better: because unless and until this conversation features more empathy, I think there will be some pretty sharp limits on how useful it's going to be.

I agree that hardware tends to get cheaper over time. However, services are a different story.

Here's an article about the price of a Netflix subscription:
https://flixed.io/netflix-price-hikes
That launched in 2011, and they've added/removed some options, but none of their plans have got cheaper. In the UK, a standard subscription (without ads) was originally £6/month and now it's £13/month.

Adobe licensing is another example. Back in 2016, it cost £46/month for Creative Cloud ("all apps"). In 2025, Creative Cloud Pro is £66/month.

I don't have figures to hand for cloud computing (AWS or Azure), but I haven't noticed those costs plummeting in the last 5-10 years.

Also bear in mind that the AI companies are currently running at a loss, so I think it's unlikely that the cost of making videos will become "negligible".

Could have fooled me. You've made a number of replies to both me and another user, and it's like you can't see past your own viewpoint to try to understand where the other person is coming from. I felt like I was being brow-beaten for trying to communicate my opinion, you wouldn't let go of little details that got to you, and it felt you were trying to railroad me into saying something that you could use to "prove" that my opinion was "wrong". You even took me wanting to end my conversation with you and tried to turn that into "an insight into the concerns and limitations of an AI proponent", as if I am some sort of deviant to be studied and scrutinised. I can't speak for how the other user feels but it reads like it might be a similarly frustrating experience for them as well.

Yeah, I was wrong to be mocking, but perhaps you could take a look at your own conduct and your own overbearing communication style before trying to tell others how to behave. I'm about to hit mute, so if you reply to this, I won't see it.

I said I homebrew 75+% of the stuff I use in my games, not that I use AI for the other 25%. The other 25% is generally straight from the official handbooks or third-party books.

I only use AI for the tokens or other visuals if I'm not using official NPCs/locations/etc that already have images. I don't consider this a part of my creative work, because I'm not the one creating it. Thus, I don't use AI to do the creative work (world-building, lore-writing, NPC creation, etc).


You're comparing apples to oranges. And yes, it is objective that banning something a portion of the site users use penalizes those users. You're taking something away from those users.


Have you been reading people's comments? Most of us on the "allow" side are in favor of restrictions on AI to protect real WAM producers. What empathy are you looking for, from either side, that hasn't already been expressed in this thread? People who strongly oppose AI aren't going to look for common ground with AI users, and most of us AI users are advocating for limitations on AI to prevent this site from getting swamped with it, and to prevent pirating, deepfakes, and other non-consensual content being uploaded or advertised here. Beyond that, I don't see what relevance talking about our feelings has in this discussion.

Also, as a reminder, this thread was a poll about whether or not UMD users would pay for AI-generated content. Banning AI content here is currently just a hypothetical discussion. And honestly, I think I've said about all I can say on the subject.

There's no *trying* to justify my reasoning when this is common points.

Common points that the majority of folk have against AI and why it lacks the human touch. Which again, if you don't want to even doodle some simple lines on a paper or paint, that's fine. But honestly, it sounds like you're trying to justify your own reasoning to yourself when using AI (instead like going on a AI image website, just go to a website that has pre-exisiting characters created (not manufactured by AI) by other people).

And yeah, works do get invalidated when ANY AI usage is in use in any media. That's not me alone, that's the common viewpoint of the majority on this problem.

Not everyone has to be artist, we can agree. Yet you gotta respect the arts, respect people who practice in such arts (be it the wammers, doodlers, DMs, etc) and gotta respect one's self to not stoop to that level where using any percentage of AI is "Okay" (which again, to each their own if you want to keep using AI but you could do better). Thinking otherwise, its disingenuous and disrespectful to yourself and to others.

Then let me be blunt with you: you (not so much Kabe, but definitely you) need to learn to communicate your opinion better. Accusations and allegations are not opinions. Strawmen are not opinions. Mocking other people is not the same as stating your opinion. If you can't straightforwardly express your own point of view without making another person in the conversation into a cartoon villain (and it's not just me - you did the same thing to johnny), then your communication skills need work. I can demonstrate this for you if you want me to. I can point out where other people have done it. I can help you learn. But if you falsely malign me in public, that shit will not fly, regardless of what your intentions may have been.


So let me see if I'm understanding this correctly. Earlier you said that you don't use AI to "do the creative work for you." Now what you're saying is that AI doesn't count as part your creative work because it *is* doing the work for you? I'm honestly not trying to go out of my way to be a jerk about this, but like... this really feels like a linguistic shell game to me. And, I mean, okay - it's whatever percent it is. 1%, 0.1% - the number is whatever it is. I'm just really, really having a hard time understanding the logic here.

To me, if I use a tool to do work for me, then the use of the tool is part of the process. I use a blender when I cook, I use the word processor's built-in autocorrect when I write, I use some of the automation stuff in Postman when I test APIs at my job. I'm not gonna go around telling people that I puree all my vegetables by hand or that I correct all my own typos or that I update all the stupid variables in my Postman requests myself. Those are all parts of the work that I get tools to do for me, but to me they're very much still part of the work, and I would never, ever deny that I use those tools in the creative (or, at work, not-so-creative) process.


Okay, good - now I at least know what you mean by "penalize." Which, yeah, if all you mean is that you're taking something away from someone, I absolutely agree. That would presumably be the entire point of a ban, would be to take something away from users. Although in that case all the other parallels I discussed would in fact be parallels, because something was taken away in all those cases as well...? But that's fine. At least you've told me what you mean.


Are you sure? Are you really sure that no one else here would sympathize with someone who has a hard time finding something that satisfies their specific niche within WAM? Are you sure that there are no other artists here who would sympathize with someone who wants to produce a higher-quality work but feels squeezed by time constraints and a perceived lack of ability? Like, for crying out loud, the sentence before this one was, "Most of us on the 'allow' side are in favor of restrictions on AI to protect real WAM producers" - which *is* common ground.

I agree that a lot of the people in this thread haven't done a super-great job of highlighting whatever common ground exists. But just to give you one example, PiedVictim did try. You said it would take time, effort, and/or money to get good images without AI. They also said that it takes time and effort to get good at something. You said you didn't currently want to put in the time or effort. They literally said "that's fine too." I wish they'd backed off of some of the language that they were using and found a less harsh tone, just like I wish thereald would back off of the smartest-guy-on-Twitter act. (Which, as an aside: PiedVictim, if you were indeed trying to establish some kind of common ground here, it sure doesn't look like you succeeded, and I don't think that's completely Kabe's fault.) But I just don't think it's accurate to say that nobody on the other side of the conversation tried to find common ground with you. Again: was it a perfect try? No, definitely not. Was it even, like, an above-average try? Debatable; I would say no (and again I would encourage PiedVictim to think about this). But it sure does look like, as the kids say, an attempt was made.

That's just nitpicking. The tokens and other visuals are extras, fun things if I have time at the end, but as I said a few times, are unimportant aspects of my prep and I don't consider that a part of my creative work. In your cooking analogy, that's like putting a pretty placemat under the plate of food at the table. Yes, it enhances the final aesthetic and makes the overall visual more impactful, but it wasn't part of the cooking process.


Read PiedVictim's comments again. He's not looking for common ground. He's calling anyone who uses AI lazy and devaluing all the actual work put in because AI was used on an unimportant bit. The "Just pick up a pencil or admit you're lazy" argument has never been an attempt at finding common ground.

The worst thing about AI is threads asking for opinions about AI...

I'm sorry, but this smells like bullshit. First of all, they are not *just* "aspects of your prep." If you use these images in your sessions, then they are a part of your campaign. In other words, you don't just prep with these things and then leave them behind the scenes somewhere. You also use them in your storytelling, which means you are using them in your creative process.

And then, second, if all the stuff you're using AI for is so unimportant, why do you use AI for it at all? Like, I just don't ever believe it when someone gets into a long, protracted argument like this one and then tells me that, well, really the argument is over something that doesn't matter very much. If it didn't matter what kind of tokens and scenery and NPC images you used, you could equally well get some open-access assets online, or create some bare-minimum material by hand, or just ask your players to use their imaginations. But you're choosing to use AI instead, and I absolutely refuse to believe that you're the one person on Earth who makes choices for no reason.


Is that the word he used, though? Actually?

This conversation got sidetracked to be about my D&D prep, where, yes, my AI use is minimal and merely for presentation value. If I'm using premade/official NPCs, locations, etc, then there's generally already art available for it, often already in the VTT so I don't have to upload anything. Often, I'll use those VTT assets if I'm making something similar to something that already exists as well, unless I'm going for something visually different. I only use AI to generate images of things that are uniquely mine and don't exist elsewhere or that I have a specific look I want them to have.

If you look at my profile, I use AI quite a bit for outfits, scenarios, and WAM - non-game-related stuff. *That* is what this discussion should be about: the things shared on this site.


Do you always try to win arguments by technicality? His comments clearly imply that, even if he doesn't use the exact word.

That said, this argument is pointless. You already have your mind made up and are arguing around the points with technicalities and word play, so nothing productive will come of continuing this.

Drawing images is not part of DMing for most people. It isn't doing any creative work he'd have done, it's supplementing the work he does. Literally nobody loses with this. Twitter artists aren't losing commissions because it wasn't going to be commissioned in the first place.

I used to be quite interested in generating AI images, but I realised it was the "Skinner box" effect going on. I was just cranking (heh) the handle on this random generation box, blindly tweaking prompts based on cargo culted knowledge and my own best guesses of what the fuck was going on, and getting a dopamine hit when I actually got something even vaguely close to what I wanted; then I posted it to UMD to get the additional dopamine hit of seeing the little notification icon light up when people liked the images, or asked for tips on how I'd done it. It was genuinely addicting, in a bad way; in no way was it quality time well spent, or that I felt good about afterwards.

I've walked away from it and I think I've deleted all my old AI posts (though I may have missed one or two), and I'm a lot happier for it.

Relevant to this, there's a big piece in the New York Times today about the "sycophantic" tendencies (industry word, actually) of ChatGPT and the mental health problems it can exacerbate. Unsettling stuff!

Well if you all think AI is bad, just wait until people can have WAM sessions with their Japanese sex robot.

You say that like it's a bad thing

I'd put money on that has already happened.

AI will be fully integrated into TVs in the next few years it will become easier and easier for people to create their own content. I'm glad my fetish is simple and it will probably be easy to generate pie fights and non nude scenes that look real.
The anti AI people need to find something else to keep them up at night since AI isn't going anywhere, it's only going to improve then self improve untill we can't tell anymore.
Dangerous for society? Probably.
Great for creating your own fantasy?
Definitely.